[taxicabjesus]

I've decided that American jails are job projects [2]. They make work for guards, sheriffs and lawyers, at the expense of trapping people in a system from which they can't escape.

The passenger I bailed out of jail [0] was almost killed by jail policies. He was forced to submit to a daily injection of time-release insulin, on the basis of his high A1C levels at intake. This has the effect of suppressing his blood sugar throughout the day... Time-release insulin is probably okay on a normal diet with adequate amounts of sugar. The Maricopa County Jail feeds a starvation diet, where the only things worth eating are found in the vending machines.

I think we're slowly realizing the futility of fixing social problems by throwing people in cages. The recently-passed "First Step act" [1] is a baby-step in the right direction.

[0] Who Are Your Lifelines? http://www.taxiwars.org/who-are-your-lifelines/ (originally posted at kuro5hin.org)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Step_Act

[2] America's Make-Work Sheriff: The Anachronism of Joseph Arpaio - https://www.taxiwars.org/2017/09/americas-make-work-sheriff-...

[2] Ordinary Rendition: The Public Servants' Quagmire https://www.taxiwars.org/2017/10/ordinary-rendition-public-s...

[trhway]

>This passenger had gotten a series of "driving without a license" tickets, and now owes $10,000+ in fines. Because of the outstanding balance, the state issues him an identification card that expires every 3 or 6 months. People who don't have balances with the state get identification cards without an expiration date.

the state behaves just like a petulant cruel child, so typical of GOP and their puritanical mentality.

If ID is required by state to access basic rights, then having such an ID is a right not a privilege. In this case, beside everything else, AZ by de-facto denying ID to those people effectively strips them of their right to vote for example.

[sn41]

A related note on prison systems designed as cheap labor: Solzhenitsyn argued that the Gulag system was not a Stalinist aberration from the Soviet ideal : Lenin himself had envisioned forced labor in an extensive network.

Solzhenitsyn remarks that the Soviet productivity in public works was dependent on this system of slave labor. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

[hopler]

The US prison system is a direct reaction to the Constitutional Amendments that banned chattel slavery except for prison. Et voila, immediately a huge prison system immediately popped up.